moon bunnies

by Mel Ohlinger

After studying Dante and his journey for Love—his attempt to rise above tragedy and make sense of a broken world—I began exploring how love could transform the darkest parts of life into beauty. To embody that idea in paint, I worked with the person I loved most in the world: my toddler daughter.

Like trees, which communicate through their roots using underground fungal networks—the “wood wide web” (I love a good pun)—we survive and thrive through connection. These invisible exchanges create resilience in a forest, and I wanted this painting to capture that same sense of quiet strength, rooted in love and relationship.

I was also wrestling with questions of faith. The story of Abraham reminds us that God does not accept human sacrifice—it wasn’t just a test, but a lesson. Perhaps my suffering carried lessons too. My hope was to rise above violence and hardship, to create a symbol of peace that could ground me in the midst of chaos. Looking back at the notes I kept while painting, they read like the words of someone desperate. Again and again, I wrote that if God gave me this ability, then I had a responsibility to use it. I still struggle with the thought that painting could be a “divine gift,” but at that time it was the only way I knew to respond, to give something back.

So I painted—with my daughter’s help. Together, we poured every ounce of love we had into it. At that point in my life, the things that sustained me were my child, my friends, my dreams, and my stubborn ability to turn nothing into something. Underneath the finished layers, the first layer of this painting is filled with portraits of the people who had made life difficult. Over them, I painted pathways of moonlight weaving through like roots...or as my daughter suggested, like bunnies through burrows.

The moonlight became another important symbol: its cool, pacifying energy, a reminder that with time comes clarity, stability, and compassion. I wasn’t in that place yet when I began this painting. But the act of making it, with my daughter by my side, was part of my path toward getting there.

Sidenote: This one looks so much better in person. Digital recreations of it kind of stink. The pink is a pale, warm color and the teals are more intertwined.